Human trafficking: Many European states not doing enough for child victims

Human trafficking: Many European states not doing enough for child victims

Governments across Europe need to step up their efforts to identify child victims of human trafficking and provide them with the support they are legally entitled to, writes Council of Europe, according to a new report from the Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA)

Further measures are also needed in many countries to improve the identification of trafficking victims more generally, to provide victims with better assistance – as well as compensation – and to boost the effectiveness of trafficking-related investigations, prosecutions and convictions.

These are among the findings of GRETA’s Fourth General Report, which highlights some of the main trends from GRETA’s first 35 country reports as well as key areas where national authorities are falling short of their commitments under the Council of Europe’s anti-trafficking convention. The report also gives examples of good practice from many different countries.

The Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, said: “Since its launch in 2005, the Council of Europe’s groundbreaking convention on human trafficking has been signed and ratified by 42 of our member countries, as well as non-member Belarus. That is a huge step forward in helping Europe to tackle this modern-day scourge in a coordinated and comprehensive manner.

“However, this report shows that there is still much work to be done. Important pieces of the jigsaw are still missing and, crucially, member states need to fully live up to the commitments they made when signing up to the convention so as to help put an end to this horrendous crime”.

Photo: Council of Europe official web-site